Column: Big moments in PGA Tour season lost amid LIV Golf

ATLANTA (AP) — Two weeks after Justin Thomas received the PGA Championship with a record-tying comeback and a defining shot in a playoff, Dustin Johnson led a pack of gamers over to LIV Golf.

Two days after Tiger Woods strode throughout the Swilcan Bridge at St. Andrews for what may be the final time, Cameron Smith sat subsequent to the claret jug and sidestepped questions on his inevitable departure to the Saudi-funded rival league.

There was no escaping. Gamers saved speaking as a result of the media saved asking.

And now the PGA Tour season is over and LIV fills the void, claiming six extra gamers Tuesday, the largest of them Smith, the “champion golfer of the 12 months” and No. 2 on the earth.

The subsequent large occasion — a minimum of on community TV — would be the Presidents Cup at Quail Hole, the place LIV Golf is bound to be entrance and heart due to who’s not there. 5 gamers from the final Worldwide crew at Royal Melbourne now are with LIV Golf (so are three People from the 2019 matches).

As one former main champion mentioned in early June when LIV Golf was about to launch, “The tour misplaced market shares.” That’s 32 shares — the variety of PGA Tour gamers within the 48-man LIV discipline outdoors Boston.

What the tour additionally misplaced to LIV was a season of outstanding moments that have been overshadowed, typically inside hours, by the limitless chatter a couple of rival league.

Scottie Scheffler went from no wins to No. 1 on the earth in span of six weeks after which two weeks later was fitted for a Masters inexperienced jacket. Smith had one of many biggest closing nines in British Open historical past. Rory McIlroy tied a pleasant bow across the season with a file comeback within the Tour Championship for a 3rd FedEx Cup title. It was an opportunity for him to lastly discuss his golf as a substitute of his opposition to LIV Golf. In fact, he managed to do each.

The largest second?

Depart that to the gamers, who had their very own standards.

“The very first thing that involves thoughts is Cam Smith’s again 9,” Adam Scott mentioned. “That’s obtained to go down as top-of-the-line nines in Open historical past. Given it was the one hundred and fiftieth Open Championship and it was the head of the 12 months and he shot 30 on the again 9, I say that.”

Jordan Spieth, who grew up with Scheffler in Dallas, pointed to the 18th inexperienced at Augusta Nationwide. Scheffler had a five-shot lead going to the final gap and eventually allowed it to sink in that he was about to turn out to be a Masters champion. After which he four-putted.

“For me, having watched him develop up, from my perspective it was Scottie’s snort on the 18th inexperienced in Augusta earlier than his fourth putt,” Spieth mentioned. “It confirmed the lightness of him and the heaviness of the entire state of affairs.”

Jon Rahm was struck by the emotion of winless Will Zalatoris having twice misplaced in a playoff, twice been runner-up in a serious after which making a 10-foot putt in regulation and screaming in his finest Steph Curry impersonation, “What are they gonna say now?” He went on to win the FedEx St. Jude Championship, the primary FedEx Cup playoffs occasion.

“I understand how laborious it’s to get your first win. I’m one of many fortunate ones that was capable of get it completed early,” Rahm mentioned. “For him to have heartbreaks this 12 months, particularly within the majors, to get to that state of affairs … I do know there are moments of much more magnitude, however I decide that simply due to how I really feel for him.”

Massive moments in golf are usually constructed across the majors, and there have been indelible moments: Smith’s putt across the Highway Gap bunker, Matt Fitzpatrick’s 9-iron from a bunker that secured his U.S. Open title at Brookline, the 3-wood Thomas hit onto the par-4 seventeenth inexperienced within the playoff at Southern Hills.

For a number of gamers, the perfect second of the 12 months concerned a man who didn’t win a serious and completed solely one among them.

They pointed to a Friday afternoon at St. Andrews when Woods got here up the 18th gap with faces peering via window panes in accommodations, straining to see via a fence alongside the highway and watching from balconies and rooftops.

“Most likely Tiger coming down 18 on the Open I’d say has loads of clicks and loads of views in everybody’s hearts,” Xander Schauffele mentioned.

Max Homa agreed, apart from the situation.

True, he had the privilege of enjoying with Woods that day at St. Andrews, so it was perplexing to listen to him discuss watching the scene unfold from a distance as his idol limped towards the 18th inexperienced.

“Not the Open, the Masters,” Homa mentioned. “He was within the group behind me.”

And whereas having the grey previous city as a backdrop is historic and chilling, there was one thing particular about seeing Woods in a Sunday purple shirt at Augusta simply 14 months after a automotive crash that almost claimed his proper leg.

“Simply with what’s happening in golf, watching Tiger limp up 18 like a struggle hero simply put what I like about competitors into perspective,” Homa mentioned. “As a result of he doesn’t want to do that. He simply loves enjoying golf. It was a tremendous spectacle simply to see everyone love him.

“They’re arguing LIV and do you play golf for the cash — whether or not that’s proper or flawed — and I’m taking a look at a man with all the cash on the earth who doesn’t must play anymore. He’s limping with a giant previous smile very pleased with himself. I assumed that was cool.”

___

Extra AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports